SHAWN STEVENSON: It's a special time of year again where people are getting together, communing, giving thanks, celebrating gift giving, all that good stuff. But I'm telling you right now, this episode is timeless. No matter when you're listening to this re-listening, it's going to be immensely valuable. But since it's that special time of year, I really wanted to lean into some of the science and practicality of gratitude. Why is gratitude so powerful? And so I have some incredible experts to share their insights and also strategies on cultivating gratitude and also the transformative power that it has. Whether it's on your brain health, whether it's on manifesting better results in your life, and I don't say these things lightly.

In fact, a study conducted by researchers at UC Davis revealed that people who utilize gratitude, alright, specifically a gratitude journal IE keeping track of things that they're grateful for. For a two month study period, were significantly closer to reaching their goals than people who did not. A gratitude practice works in a myriad of ways. It helps to keep you resilient. It helps to remind you that you have the power to affect change. It recharges a positive frame of mind, and it tends to support adaptive thinking. All of these start to stack conditions in our favor when we're talking about manifesting and creating the life that we want.

Gratitude has more and more emerging science around it. While other studies have found that irregular gratitude practice can reduce levels of stress hormones, improve immune system function, improve sleep quality, decrease inflammation measured by C-reactive protein. For example, a 2011 study cited in the journal, applied psychology revealed that writing in a gratitude journal helped test subjects to improve their sleep quality.

All right, I can go on and on and on. Gratitude is a tangible. Practical thing that we can do and express in the real world, but it creates tangible changes within our biology. And so I'm very, very excited to share this with you and being that the holiday season kicks off with what we've called, thanks. I really wanted to lean into that with you, with our experts today, Thanksgiving.

Of course, it can simply mean giving thanks. Absolutely, giving thanks. So powerful in and of itself. But with Thanksgiving, that can also mean gratitude and giving, and giving, being of service, appreciation and service. This is one of those science backed ways that we improve our health, our connection, and create a whole host of benefits with our own psychology and our biology, and the psychology and biology of other people, the people that we are being of service to.

So I want to encourage that in this season as well, to find a way to give, to be of service. And I hope today that what I've created for you is going to be of service to you and your family and a joyous holiday season. And to kick things off, first and foremost, you're gonna learn how gratitude impacts your brain and nervous system, the impact of gratitude around meals, and some simple tips that you can utilize to experience more gratitude. And you're gonna learn all of this from New York Times bestselling author, memory coach, and accelerated learning expert, Jim Kwik. Enjoy this first segment with somebody who I give thanks for all the time. He's brought so many incredible blessings into my life. The one and only Jim Kwik.

JIM KWIK: I really think that gratitude is the memory of the heart. If you will, that we're not, we're not always logical, but we're biological. And gratitude. And we're in a world where people, there's a lot of fear. There's a lot of unknown or uncertainty. I think gratitude is very grounding. It calms your nervous system. For me, it's a way of getting to that parasympathetic rest and digest where I could restore better. Sometimes when we're in fight or flight, we don't make the best decisions, right? We're stuck in talking about the brain, kind of in our survival brain, and it holds you hostage from your executive functioning, your problem solving, your ability to be creative, your ability to vision new things.

Because when you're, when your amygdala is set off, then you're under threat. Right? They're saber two tigers everywhere. So I think gratitude is a wonderful way to calm down your nervous system, to slow your heart rate also as well. And, you know, and the simple exercise I do to be more grateful is something like if you wanna feel wealthy, count all the things you have in your life that, that money can't buy. You know, if you're blessed to have any of your senses, like, you know, what, would you, would it be any price you would take to be able to give that away? You know, or the, or what if the only things you had tomorrow is another mental experiment? What if the only things you had in your life tomorrow were the things you express gratitude for today? You know, and it's just, it just lands different.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah.

JIM KWIK: Right. And that the expression is what's important. You can't just like mentally, oh yeah, I'm glad I have a place to live and, and a job, and people in my life, but when you feel it just, it just changes. So, yeah. Do you have some kind of gratitude practice yourself or prayer or like at the dining table or, what does that look like? 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Of course, that's how I start off my meditation, you know. After I do, you know, maybe do some breath of fire, maybe, you know, just do some kind of breath work, then I'll sit for a bit. But once I get into more active versions of it, gratitude is the first thing. We're doing that for many, many years. And as a family, whenever we sit down to eat a meal together, we go around and share three things that we're grateful for from that day, and we've been doing that for years as well.

And truly, you know, especially when you're dealing with a negative feeling situation, emotion. Gratitude is an like, it's like an antidote for so many things that we deem to be negative. It's just like an instant perspective shift. And some, it's a, it's like a muscle though too, you know. Sometimes being able to tune into that gratitude station can be a little bit difficult if we haven't trained ourself, but it can really help to pull us out. Reframe. And also, as far as that family context, it's like, it's a unifier. You know, it gets us talking, gets us thinking, and starting to also search through the day unconsciously for things to be grateful for because we're not gonna, we're know, we know we're gonna be talking about it later. You know, there's just so many, there's nothing but upside when it comes to gratitude.

JIM KWIK: So it activates that, we've talked about in previous episodes that reticular activating system, that RAS, where you start observing things that you can appreciate more. And you start seeing that. Just like when those exercises where they say, you know, close your eyes and think about everything around you, that's the color green, right? And then you think about you don't seal up and then you open your eyes, you do. And then you say, okay, close your eyes. What's red? Right? You will be, it shines a spotlight on those things that, that's always there 'cause our brain primarily is more of a deletion device. Because if we let everything in, we would, we'd be overloaded and overwhelmed.

But we're, what we decide to let in are things that we're interested in, things we have questions about, the things that are important to us. And I think gratitude is the primary emotion for creating or manifesting anything you want in your life. 'Cause I know, I mean, how many of us know people who have a lot of, let's say, have a lot of material things, but they're not very happy, right? Gratitude is antidote for fear, for stress. And when we're in that state of appreciation, I feel like we perform better. And, you know, even giving is another part of it. When you give, you teach your nervous system that there's enough. And so being very intentional and what you just did at that meal, you're doing neuro stacking, right?

You're eating a healthy meal. You're communing with people that you love and gratitude is great grounding. So it's like stacking it so it doesn't take necessarily more time. And it's also, it's not just what you're doing, it's what you're not doing. Where most people are working while they're eating and that puts 'em in a stress state.

They're in the sympathetic state, so not digesting. So it's not even just like what you're eating. Of course you wanna eat the best foods possible that are nourished. 'Cause what you nourish flourishes, but it's also, you know, when you're eating and how you're eating it 'cause a lot of people are not even tasting their food nowadays. Because they're just focused on what, whatever else there is. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. Wow. And by the way, shout out to everybody who's watching on their phone right now.

JIM KWIK: Yes.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Thank you for having lunch with us or dinner, whatever the case might be. But that's a, that's a neural stack as well. You can do it intentional and be able to, you know, sit with people who are virtual friends and mentor mentors from afar. Things that we can never do before. It's such a blessing. 

JIM KWIK: Yeah. And with those mentors too, if there's conversations, then you're getting the novelty and the nutrition at the same time, right? You're learning and building that making those new connections 'cause neuroplasticity, right? Which is the phenomenon of our brains, our ability, our nervous system ability to make new connections, right? We could think new thoughts, we could have new feelings. We could have, we could change our beliefs and the way we look at the world. So it requires novelty, like building a muscle, right?

You give it some kind of stimulus, some kind of novelty. You work it out and then you give it the proper nutrition to build. Same thing with neuroplasticity, novelty, and nutrition. So having great discussions around meals is you're getting your nutrition while you're getting the novelty of new ideas. So you're feeding your mind and your body. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Alright. I hope that you enjoyed that first segment. I've got so much more in store for you in being that it's that time of year holiday season. It also tends to come along with a moniker being cold and flu season. Cold and flu gets its own season. It's that important. It's that special. All right. We want to minimize how special colds and flus think they are and have some science backed defense against those things, and also being that it's this time of year. When there are these incredible Cyber Monday and Black Friday sales with incredible companies as well that are really backed by science and utilizing great ingredients, I wanna make sure that you get access to early access to some of the most incredible science backed.

Products that I utilize for immune system support for myself and for my family for years. And one of those things was based on research that was cited in the peer review journal, antiviral chemistry and chemotherapy. Affirming that propolis has significant antiviral effects, specifically in reducing viral lung infections. Propolis is this incredible B product that has thousands of years of documented use, but today, emerging evidence is being published in some of the most prestigious peer-reviewed journals, but the sourcing matters so much. The propolis that I utilize, that I've been using for years that I had today is from the incredible team at Beekeepers Naturals, and right now for Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

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So these lollies, and also many of beekeeper's products are now at pharmacies around the nation. All right. But the cool thing is we get 30% off right now when you go to beekeepers naturals.com/model. That's B-E-E-K-E-E-P-E-R-S-N-A-T-U-R-A-L s.com/model 30% off storewide for a limited time. Please know that they always sell out during this time of year. So first come first serve to take advantage of this. Again, 30% off plus a free bag of their throat soothing lollipops with your order. All right. Truly incredible. They're propolis spray their be better cough syrup. These are all staples at my house. Things you always wanna keep on hand. And also, these are some of the most popular products in the country right now.

As a matter of fact, their honey based cough syrup is the number one cough syrup online. So it's pretty powerful. Amazing based on real food ingredients and also including things like elderberry, which was found in a recent human clinical trial to have significant effects in accelerating the recovery from illnesses and reducing the need for synthetic drug aids.

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In this incredible compilation centered around gratitude, we have multi-platinum recording artists and bestselling author, Big Sean. This is one of my favorite episodes of all time, and obviously incredible musical artist, but also just incredibly insightful. And his book Go Higher was one of the first books that my youngest son read cover to cover. All right, so I think he was around 12, maybe 12 and a half, maybe 13 at the most. But when he picked up the book and you know, it was just part of his daily routine to read some of this book and he loved it and we had great conversations about it.

You know, just being able to spark certain thoughts and also, you know, the stories in there being very relatable. It's obviously a wonderful book for kids, but also it's a great book and full of great ideas for us as well, including the power of gratitude. And so in this segment, he's gonna be talking to you about the connection between gratitude and manifesting the life that you truly want. Enjoy this next segment from the One and only Big Sean. 

BIG SEAN: For me, I realized, you know, you think you have all these goals, and I've done vision boards, I have vision boards. I do all of these things, and sometimes I manifest things on 'em. Sometimes I don't. Sometimes they'll come around years later and I'll be like, oh yeah, that was on there.

Like, you know, but it all happens on God's time, one and two, you have to realize and, pat yourself on the back for all the manifestations and all the things you are doing. You know, even if it's on a small level. We kind of discount ourselves of the small wins every day that we accomplish. You know, whether it's like, Hey, man, today I need to do my laundry, do this, fold my, I need to brush my teeth, I need to take a shower. I need to do these things that become routine. And, but they really are an example of you setting a goal and accomplishing it.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's a muscle.

BIG SEAN: It is a muscle. And once you recognize that. It just, it's like you feed it, you know what I mean? And you feed the energy of, okay, that's what, that's the type of person I am. I'm an accomplished person, I'm a manifester. It's like, you know, when you're in a relationship sometimes and you do all these sweet things for each other, and then sometimes they can start to become regular. You know, these acts of love starts to just become routine.

You don't really recognize them or give 'em the energy anymore. And not only do they not mean as much, sometimes they start, stop happening and sometimes they fall off. It's like whatever you give your energy to and appreciation to, and gratitude for you, breed more of it. You know, it's a simple recipe of success, and one of the key parts of manifestation that I learned is to be thankful for all your wins and to celebrate 'em in your own way. So that is real, real important for everyone to recognize that if you want to create more things in your life, celebrate the things you're creating right now. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: I hope that you're enjoying this incredible compilation focused on the power of gratitude. Up next, we have world renowned neuroscientist and bestselling author, Dr. Joe Dispenza. And in this segment he's gonna be talking to you about how gratitude can make you more physically and mentally resilient. And much more. Let's dive into this next segment with the incredible Dr. Joe Dispenza. 

DR. JOE DISPENZA: Well, this took me a long time, Shawn, to figure out, because I think that when people are, say that they want a new job, or they want a new relationship, or they wanna be healthy, they're, they're actually waiting for their health to improve, to feel gratitude. They're waiting for their new relationship to feel joy and gratitude, and thankfulness, you know. They're waiting for the new career to happen. And once it happens, then they celebrate and feel gratitude. Well, if you believe that your thoughts and feelings produce an effect in your life, and you're living in the lack in every single day waiting for it to happen. You're separate from the experience, right?

So if you think about the emotional signature of gratitude, when you are receiving something that you like that's pleasurable, you've just gotten or received something that is pleasurable, something just happened to you, or something's happening to you that you like, you say thank you, you feel gratitude. So the emotional signature of gratitude is that you, something has already happened, and it is the absolute perfect state of receiving. It is the absolute state of receivership. So, here's an example, a person gets a diagnosis. The diagnosis is something like cancer. The first moment they hear that word, they feel fear, they feel a change in their internal state, and they pay attention to what the doctor says.

They take a snapshot and they create that memory. They'll remember the moment the doctor said that. So, now they're in fear. They're scared and they're gonna think positively, or they're saying, I'm gonna beat this thing. Well, if they're feeling fear, they can only accept, believe, and surrender to the thoughts equal to their emotional state. That fear will, fear thoughts will be the only ones that'll make it in there. Now, if the person changes fear to gratitude as an example. And they really start training their heart. We can measure when a person feels gratitude, what happens to their heart? Their heart gets regulated, it gets, starts beating more coherently.

It starts increasing energy to the brain. It starts creating an ambient field around the body. This is when your heart starts working for you. That when a person starts feeling gratitude, then the emotional signature in the body is that something's happening to them. So, or something's just happened to them. So if you're in a state of gratitude, you're in a state of receiving, then the thoughts that you think will make it to the body and program the autonomic nervous system into a different destiny. So, just in four days, we found that when people, 10 minutes a day for four days, traded anger, frustration, fear, all those limited emotions for gratitude, that their immune system improved by 50%.

They made a immunoglobulins that made their body stronger. Now that's, if a pharmaceutical company had a drug that could strengthen immunoglobulin A in your body would be on every television commercial during the news, and yet your body, your nervous system's, the greatest pharmacist there is. So then your body is objective. It's your unconscious mind. It doesn't know the difference between a real life experience that creates an emotion and the emotion that you're creating by thought alone. So if your body is feeling gratitude, it's believing that something's happening to you. So in the beginning you go, well, I'm gonna try gratitude.

And then you think, well, this feels really weird. Why would I give gratitude until it happens? Well, thats cause how you've been hypnotized. You've been programmed that way. But what if you changed it around you? The moment you feel gratitude, healing begins. The moment you feel grateful for your life, your life is gonna change. Now you're causing an effect. So we have to, we have to embrace the emotion before it happens. Now why? Well, let's just say you just did a great meditation and your heart is blown wide open, and you feel grateful for life, or you're connected to the emotions of your new career, your new job, your new life.

If you're feeling the feeling that your new life has already happened, you wouldn't be looking for it any longer. You would be feeling like it's already happened. So you wouldn't look and be separate from it. You would feel connected to it. And then if you lost it and you started feeling angry because of traffic, I'd say, oh my God, you're back to the unconscious program again, of allowing something outside of you to control your feelings and thoughts. You're back to that victimization program. So then when you start playing this game. And you catch yourself and yourself self correct, and you get back into gratitude and feeling it, then your body is no longer preoccupied of when it's gonna happen or where it's gonna happen. If you feel it, it feels like it's already happened. So that's the moment you're no longer separate from it. That's the moment you start drawing or magnetizing experiences to you. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's not just the thought of gratitude, it's feeling. 

DR. JOE DISPENZA: You gotta make it visceral. And we actually, we actually use HRV monitors. We put heart rate monitors on people. We study them for 24 hours. We wanna know if they're actually doing it, and we have great results. People could actually sustain that state for over 45 minutes. They just, it's just a skill. Now, why is that important? Because in their life they should be able to do it with their eyes open. Right. That's the game, right? Practice with your eyes closed 'cause you don't wanna be distracted. Right. Get good at it. Stand in line. Sit in traffic. You know, listen to your best friend complain, and you stay in gratitude. You're, you're doing something really well. You're self-regulating. Yeah. So, so much of our attention's on our outer environment and we, we wanna put a little bit more attention on our inner environment and we wanna create that coherence between the outer world and our inner world. That's when we start to master things. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Absolutely. Yeah. We wanna be able to mediate our emotions, you know, because I think it's so easy, again, to get trapped in those old patterns. If you don't catch it, and like you can decide how you want to feel in that moment, rather than being just a victim to circumstance.

DR. JOE DISPENZA: There you go. And I mean, listen, I react. I mean, we all react. But the question is how long right. Are you gonna react? Because those chemicals really last 90 seconds to two minutes. After that, you're faking it. I mean, or you're just, you're, you're keeping it going. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. 

DR. JOE DISPENZA: So shortening the refractory period of your emotional reactions is really emotional intelligence. If you're gonna teach your kids anything, teach 'em that. Because if you don't, it'll turn out to be part of their personality. And they gotta work really hard the rest of their life to not be angry or to have a short temper, or to be impatient. And, and I think that people who self-regulate, who mediate in that way internally are just generally happier people.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Alright, up next in this powerful compilation focused on the power of gratitude, you're going to hear from health psychologist and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and she's also the director of UCSF's Aging Metabolism and Emotion Center. I'm talking about the incredible doctor Elissa Epel, and in this segment, she's gonna be sharing why you should bookend your day with gratitude. For more joy and emotional wellbeing, enjoy this segment with Dr. Elissa Epel. 

DR. ELISSA EPEL: The emotional wellbeing and happiness literature are really fascinating and clear, and if we're directly seeking happiness, we probably won't find it. And that those are some of the people who are most unhappy. If we are waiting to be happy until something happens, we reach this goal or we get this, we achieve this. That is also not a good formula for happiness, and it turns out that when we can see things right in front of us that we're grateful for, or that make us happy, when we can notice them and appreciate them and savor them, that brings daily happiness. We can use that, we can just, we can use that when we wake up.

We can use that when we go to bed. Just asking. We can use it at the dinner table. What, is there something that happened better than you expected today? Is there something you're grateful for? Is there, you know, waking up and just asking, what am I looking forward to? What gives me meaning today, and it can be the small things, making someone smile, doing something kind, accomplishing something that you know fits into your North Star.

It's, it's accessible to all of us. It's just a matter of asking ourselves and noticing. It's those nudges, those bookends to the day that are helpful to both set us up for a positive trajectory instead of like waking. I mean, believe me, I do this, waking up with a to-do list and adrenaline. It's like, just wait a minute. Let's have a positive boost of emotion and energy. And that's like the opposite of that. Getting on high battery node and burning up energy and feeling exhausted 'cause that joy is energy. It's energizing, especially when it's in dialogue with someone else. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow. And again, we have this accessible to us at all times. And we don't have to try to proactively do that all day, but if we can just book end our day, start our day with that. A dose of joy end our day with a dose of joy. It's another thing that's a part of the stress prescription for a reason. It makes us more resilient.

DR. ELISSA EPEL: Exactly. And if you can't think of things, just we can ask ourselves in a gentle way and brainstorm answers and ask again if we can't think of anything. But what brings you joy? What brings you joy over and over? And it's those little things that we'll think of that we maybe haven't noticed. Pets come up often. Coffee, hug, you know, a hug in the morning. All these little things that really are love, really are meaningful. And same with vitality. What brings you vitality? What drains your battery? What people, what situations, and what energizes you. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Hmm. 

DR. ELISSA EPEL: Those are some clues. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Alright, I hope that you enjoyed that segment with the incredible Dr. Elissa Epel. I've got more goodies for you on the way. And speaking of goodies, I cannot wait for all the good stuff that I'm about to eat this holiday season. Oh my goodness. 

Hopefully you have the same feels that I feel it's just a special time of year for incredible food experiences, and we wanna upgrade that as well because our kitchen environment is someplace where we're supposed to be cultivating healthy choices and love and safety and trust.

But in reality, there has been this emerging paradigm for decades with this chemical laden non-stick cookware that little did we know was poisoning our citizens. In fact, one of the most notorious compounds used to make Teflon cookware is a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid or p FOAs, which has been found repeatedly in peer-reviewed studies to contribute to higher levels of infertility, liver disease, and a variety of cancers. For instance, a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute concluded that PFOA is a strong kidney carcinogen, and so thankfully recently, only a few years ago, has this compound utilized in conventional non-stick cookware been outlawed only to be replaced with similar compounds creating similar effects that we don't want. And so those days are over. People are choosing truly safe, non-toxic cookware, but we don't have to abandon the beauty that we're looking for with the cookware and the non-stick faculty with the cookware. And for that, this is why our place is our favorite place to get our cookware.

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Again, you get 30% offsite wide right now when you go to fromourplace.com/model. That's F-R-O-M-O-U-R-P-A-C e.com/model right now for a limited time. Take advantage, 30% off site wide. Head over there, check them out. And now moving on to our next incredible expert on the subject matter of the power of gratitude. We have double board certified psychiatrist, neuroscientists, and bestselling author, Dr. Daniel Amen. In this segment, he's gonna be sharing how to set up your environment to remind you of gratitude and happiness, how to set it up around you so that we can make it more automatic. Check out this next segment from the Incredible Dr. Daniel Amen. 

DR. DANIEL AMEN: Every day I start the day with, today is going to be a great day. It's on the top of my to-do list, and that way I'm like, well, what am I looking forward to today? Rather than I have to get through this day. When I put go to bed every night, I say a prayer, and then I go, what went hell today, and that's my favorite happiness strategy because it's like a treasure hunt where I start at the beginning of the day and I just look for what went well and the bad things will pop up.

And I'm like, it's not the point right now. What went well? And I even look for the micro moments of happiness. What's the smallest thing that happened today that made me happy? I just, I love that so much. And I remember, and I think you and I talked about this last time I was on. About two years ago, my dad died and he died of COVID. And it was terrible. And it was an awful day. And when I went to bed that night, I went, what went well today? Because it's my habit, right? Your brain does what you've done. And initially I'm like, really? Today, but it's my habit. And I thought about an interaction between the police officer and my mother, and it was so funny.

And then I thought about all the texts I'd gotten from my friends and how much, how loved I felt. And then I thought about holding my father's hand before they took him away, and it was so soft. And then I went to sleep. And you have to build these habits 'cause even though I grieved for him, still do, still miss him. I went to sleep. If you wanna get over grief, you have to sleep, right? I mean, you would agree with me on that. And it's these little tiny exercises looking for the micro moments of happiness. I have another fun exercise where right down the 20th happiest moments of your life actually had one happened last May, the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine.

So my work has been very controversial. I've gotten no end of grief from my colleagues. But last May, the Canadian Association of Nuclear Medicine wrote new procedure guidelines for spec, as if I wrote them. And of 10, the 10 authors, five of 'em were my students. So happy. Wow. But I take those 20 happiest moments of my, and I plant them around my house. So I make an association in my mind, like my front door is my wedding day and I'm carrying Tana over the threshold and I almost drop her. But that's because the night before when we were practicing our wedding dance, I almost dropped her, but it was funny and nobody got a head injury. That every time I walked through the door, plus that reminds me how much I love her.

So I'm gonna notice what I like more than what I don't like. And when I go into the living room now, it's where I was got an award from Discover Magazine. One of my research papers was listed as the top science story, neuroscience story for 2015. That was pretty cool. And then I put the Canadian paper there as well. So every time I see my living room, I see happiness. Whenever I go to the kitchen, my grandfather's at the stove, I'm named after him. He was my best friend when I was growing up. He was a candy maker and we're making brain healthy hot chocolate. So we used to make a fudge together, but I'm like, no, I want you to live longer. It was sad when he died. And so wherever I go in my house, I find happiness. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Alright, we're at our final incredible guest here in this compilation, focused on the power of gratitude. And this is somebody who is truly, for me personally, a constant reminder of the power of gratitude and somebody who is close to me, who is an incredible mentor, friend, and..

I can't even begin to tell you how impactful he's been in the lives of millions of people. And I'm talking about internationally renowned speaker, bestselling author, and the founder of Agape Spiritual Center, the incredible Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith. In this segment, he's gonna be sharing the difference between information that informs and information that transforms the power of the words we use and how gratitude changes our perception. Enjoy this final segment with Dr. Michael Bernard Beckwith. 

MICHAEL BECKWITH: But there's information that informs and there's information that transforms. And so a lot of people are accumulating information, but it's not transformative. They're not digesting it, they're not, they don't have a practice that's actually assimilating the information until it becomes real knowledge. You know, and so they may go get high for the weekend at a seminar, you know. But then by Monday they reverted back to their old patterns because they don't have an underlying practice and a higher purpose to keep them going. And oftentimes they're not really going to change. They're going to get something.

You know, if I get that, I'm going to be happy. But real transformation is about an inner dynamic of change within yourself, which is not an easy thing to do. Simple, but it's not easy. But if you're willing, you can participate in your own transformation. And so, there are people that just wanna accumulate information and we, you know, they become very academic about things. There's nothing wrong with academics at all, you know? They'll have a lot of information, but it's not embodied yet. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: You mentioned a universal law, you know, speak basically speaking things into reality.

MICHAEL BECKWITH: Right.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Isn't just speaking something that's a creation in and of itself, isn't it? 

MICHAEL BECKWITH: Yeah, it's energy. When we hear the different scriptures say things like, in the beginning was the word. The word was with God. The word was God is speaking. I call it a cellular logos. It's the logos. It's an energy, it's a vibration that then becomes flesh. It becomes, it condenses itself into perception. It condenses itself into thoughts. It condenses itself into experience. So oftentimes people are just casual with their conversations, not understanding that they're actually setting something in motion. You know, oh, my poor back. Oh, I don't like this person. You know, gossiping, talking bad about themselves. Even they're setting things in motion, you know? So I like to say, I don't wanna say what I don't want to experience, you know, I'm, I wanna say what I want to experience, so I'll say it's a magnificent day. Life is good. You know, there's a way out of this. There's an answer to this issue. There's a solution somewhere, you know, I'm gonna stay there until that becomes flesh. But it's practice because individuals, particularly now, people have normalized negativity. They've made fear popular. You know what I mean?

And, that's become, you're an oddball. If in fact you're operating at a different level, they think you're just weird, you know? And so you'd rather be an oddball in a crazy world than to be normal in a crazy world, you know? But, I always caution people, you know, and, I'll check people with me. I say, well, wait a minute. You know, there, there's unlimited good here. It's because you can't see it doesn't mean it's not here. There's unlimited possibilities. Don't block yourself in to what your mind thinks is possible. This is the only way that some good is gonna come into your life. It becomes, that's blocked.

No good's gonna come in infinite ways. Infinite ways can, miracles can happen. Your mind will call 'em miracles, but they're just demonstrations of truth, you know? So why block yourself in? Just, just stop it. Just say you don't know how it's gonna happen right now you're available to it. Let's see what happens. Let let the universal presence through its laws shock and surprise you.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Normalize that.

MICHAEL BECKWITH: Right. Normalize that.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh, yeah. You know, I'm literally just still ruminating on normalizing fear. You know, that's, it's a system within us that of course it's provided us value over our evolution.

MICHAEL BECKWITH: For sure.

SHAWN STEVENSON: But today, to live in that state habitually it, we've never, we, we're not wired up to live that way. We're not designed to be that way. And so even with so many folks having their aspirations, goals, you know, everybody lift listening right now has incredible potential to achieve. Things beyond our wildest imagination. But I think so often in fear being a big driving force of this, we get caught up in what if instead of what is. So how do we go from what if to what is? 

MICHAEL BECKWITH: Yeah. Well, what if can also be used positively? You know what, if everything works out, you know. What, if I have more than enough money, you, you can go there and you'll get to what is because what is, is that right here and right now? All of the power, all of the presence, all of the intelligence, all of the love, all that is, is already here. It's already here. It may be latent within us, but it is here. And as we begin to think like that and contemplate that truth, our frequency rises. We begin to hang in that awareness. Now what has happened is that individuals have normalized fear, which means their attention is more on what they don't want.

They dunno what they do want. So what people don't understand is that anything you don't want, you're having a relationship with it. It's existing and you're not wanting it. And so people walk out, I don't wanna be broke, I don't wanna get sick, I don't, I don't wanna crack Corona, collect, I don't wanna catch the coronavirus. I don't wanna, I don't wanna. So in that moment, if I don't wanna, the law doesn't distinguish between what you want, don't want. It only knows what you're interested in. And so if you're interested in not getting robbed, not getting poor, not catching a disease, you're in relationship with that. And then that's what you manifest.

Now, it may not, you may not manifest that exactly, but your body temple doesn't know the difference. You'll still produce toxic chemicals, immediate toxic chemicals, immediate create the condition for disease. So, I teach people you don't, you know, you get what you want or don't want. The law doesn't differentiate. So stop placing all of your attention on what you don't want to happen, and begin to place your attention on what you like to see unfold in your life. Begin to describe it. You know, the law says, you know, you don't describe what you see. You see what you describe. So if you are living in a accurate description of possibility, then the law starts to bring that into manifestation. You see? And, now most people, people should be taught this in elementary school. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Yeah. 

MICHAEL BECKWITH: You know, but instead, you know, we have the nefarious forces that key people in fear, you know, and keeping them all pumped up about what to be afraid of next. Oh, the Russians. Oh, Corona. Oh aliens. Oh, whatever, whatever it is. People are nervous, you know. We're not meant to be like that. We are, we are an absolute reflection of the entire cosmos. What do we have to be afraid of? So there's no loss in the cosmic scheme, but everybody is they've allowed themselves to shrink into being a little old something, and then they normalize their fear.

You know, Shakespeare said "a coward dies a thousand deaths" constantly, even before anything even happens. They've rehearsed all the negative stuff. You know, it's not funny, but it is kind of a comedy, you know. What human beings do to themselves. 

SHAWN STEVENSON: Ah, this, I love this so much. This is what I wanted to ask you about this today. I wanted to ask you about the comedy of life. And the sickness that we can get caught in, of taking life too seriously of taking everything so seriously.

MICHAEL BECKWITH: Right.

SHAWN STEVENSON: So let's talk a little bit about that. 

MICHAEL BECKWITH: Well, first of all, there's nothing serious going on in the universe. Nothing at all. The universe is a big explosion of joy and ecstasy and bliss. Okay? So if you, if you, you know, you gotta stretch your perception a little bit. There's no such thing as death and there's no such thing as loss. Okay? Yeah. You're gonna exit a body temple when it's your time in the world of the phenomena, you know, things come, things go. We don't deny that. But there's nothing serious happening.

So since there's nothing serious happening, what is happening? What's happening is the universal presence and all of its creation is continuing to expand to reveal the infinite nature. So that means you get to play. It's our time to play in this, you know? Now we create seriousness. You know, NBA championships going on, we create a serious time crunch. Time doesn't really exist, but we play with it. Okay. 

We only have this many minutes, and when the end of the game, whoever has more points, they win. The other person loses. Oh, that's serious. It's not really. It's called a, we, we call it a, a consistent irrelevancy. You know what I mean? It's irrelevant. It's consistent. It's fun. At the end of the day, you know.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's a social agreement. We, yeah. We all truly, we just made that up.

MICHAEL BECKWITH: We just make it up.

SHAWN STEVENSON: It's all made up.

MICHAEL BECKWITH: Yeah. It's..

SHAWN STEVENSON: Wow.

MICHAEL BECKWITH: It's, so the idea is that we are here as Joy Babies. You know, we had to tap into that joy. And the thing about it is when you move into conscious joy and gratitude. Now you may have heard this from your mom, you know, and it probably spans all cultures. Our parents saying to us, you know, if you don't stop crying, I'm gonna give you something to cry about. That's, pretty.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Oh, yeah.

MICHAEL BECKWITH: Common, right. Okay.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I've gotten that one. Yeah.

MICHAEL BECKWITH: Yeah. This, the universe says. If you don't stop being grateful, I'm gonna give you something to be grateful for. It's the same law, you know.

SHAWN STEVENSON: I like that.

MICHAEL BECKWITH: So, as you lift your attention to being grateful for anything, for the next breath, you're about to take the next beating of your heart. Then the universe will find so something that matches that field and it will shock you because it will come outside of your present perception. You know, we have a perception of life and then in this perception, we want this, we want that to be happy. We want that to be happening. We don't know it all of this exists, but if you go into the feeling of gratitude, then all of this opens up for you. And this is when you're surprised by things.

You meet the person you were supposed to meet. You didn't even know that person existed, but that's the person you needed to meet to go to the next level of your unfoldment. Opportunities show up, possibilities show up that you didn't even know existed just because you're in the feeling tone of possibility.

SHAWN STEVENSON: Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value outta this. I hope that this is something that you can celebrate and be grateful for and to share your insights, share your heart, share your spirit, share your service this holiday season. This is an opportunity for us to recharge, refuel, and also find a way to give and to support others.

And this is a really special opportunity that we have because there's a lot of craziness going on in the world, but. We have an opportunity to recenter, refocus, and to be a light right now, and a model, an example of what's possible. And so making gratitude a consistent part of our lives is something that we can model for other people because it truly is transformative on so many different levels. Again, I hope that you enjoyed this episode. We've got some incredible, oh incredible, masterclass is coming your way very, very soon, and some powerful world leading experts. So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.